How do you balance the bittersweet when life gives you too many lemons? A personal perspective on coping with adversity.
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons suggest sourness or difficulty in life; making lemonade is turning them into something positive or desirable."
- According to Wikipedia
There have been many lemons thrown at me in my life. I think that's why I like sour-tasting foods.
If you read my origin blog, It's Never Too Late to Turn a New Page, you would have learned how I made lemonade from my experience with Lymphoma.
If you read my blog, My Epic 80s Romance, you would have learned how the lemons of my father's death when I was 6 and my mother's death when I was 20 turned into lemonade that lead me to become a reluctant beauty queen and won me the best prize of my husband of 32 years (and counting).
In my blog Finding Super Strength in Adversity, I sum up how the biggest lemons in my life have helped make me stronger, more resilient and have even become my superpowers.
Here is an excerpt:
For all of the pivotal gains and successes in my life, there was often an equally great loss that proceeded. When I look back at my past adversities, it can read like a sad melodrama where the tragic hero keeps getting beaten down by life. But when I look back at my melodramatic past, I see stories of triumph with valuable lessons learned and many happily-ever-afters created.
My melodrama prequel plotline includes the following:
Her father dies unexpectedly when she is 6
Her mother gets mysterious cancer and dies when she is 20
She struggles with fertility issues caused by a brain tumour in her 30s
She is diagnosed with Lymphoma at 45
You would expect the hero in this story to be downtrodden and full of sadness. Instead, with every shift that life threw my way, I learned to adapt, grow and gain some superpowers along the way.
Now you would think that I should be adept at making lemonade by now. Nope. The lemons still hit me with the force of a ton of bricks.
The latest sack of lemons...
On December 28, 2022, I had surgery to remove polyps from my uterus discovered just before Christmas. On December 29, the doctor called to deliver the news that tests came back positive for endometrial cancer.
By Dec 30th, I was in a specialist doctor's office being told that the best course of action was a total hysterectomy. On January 6, I started off my 2023 with surgery to remove my uterus, ovaries and lymph nodes.
At the time of writing this blog post, I am still in shock and recovering from what has happened to me physically, mentally and emotionally over the span of 2 weeks. I am still awaiting the lab results to tell me the staging of the cancer and what the next steps are. I am still processing it all.
Day by day, as my body recovers, I am finding my way to heal the mental and emotional bruising that no one sees. I am reminded of lessons from a lifetime of making lemonade from lemons. And finding peace and healing in the process.
So this week I am sharing 3 lessons on coping with adversity and how to make life's lemonade sweeter.
1. Don't Be Afraid of Falling Lemons
Life's lemons grow abundantly on trees. When they ripen and get ready to fall, a few will inevitably hit us over the span of our lives. In other words, we cannot avoid adversity in life.
In my life, many of my greatest adversities happened when I was young. Losing my father at the age of 6 and having my life upended in a new country. Living with discrimination as an immigrant throughout my childhood. Watching my mother suffer through her final months with cancer and passing away when I was 20.
Because I lived through the pain of these adversities, I wanted to spare my children from experiencing this type of bitterness in their young lives.
When I had lymphoma at 45, the boys didn't know too many details about what happened. They were in their early teens so I chose to protect them from what I was going through.
When I received the endometrial cancer news in December, my mind immediately spiralled into a negative overthinking loop. I was scared for myself but I was more scared for my husband and sons. I didn't want to put them through the pain that I had experienced with my mother's cancer and death.
In a calm voice, my husband said to me, "Sooner or later our sons will need to experience us getting sick and our passing. They will need to learn how to cope. It's just a part of life and their growth." And he's right.
Coping with adversity is a necessary life skill. Accepting that there will be adversity in life and not being afraid of them is the first step in coping.
While I may not have had the happiest of childhood, adversity in early life taught me independence, perseverance, empathy and resolve. They are traumas that I am still healing from but they have also become a part of my strength and unique talents.
So we have chosen to be honest with our sons about my health status and upfront about the current status of low-grade cancer detected and removed. Once we receive the test results on the stage of cancer and the next steps, we will walk through those steps together.
We cannot control the adversities that inevitably happen to us in life and we cannot live in fear of them. All we can do is our best to be accepting and be open to coping when they do happen.
2. Learn to Use the Different Parts of the Lemon
In cooking recipes, different parts of the lemon are used to add flavour to different dishes. Sometimes you need the juice and sometimes you need the rind. But that little bit of bitterness and zest can make the recipe so much tastier.
Just like the different parts of a lemon add flavor to a recipe, the layers of learning from our adversities add value to our lives. But we can't learn and gain from them if we don't know what the lessons are.
When we experience adversity, we need to allow ourselves time to reflect, re-evaluate and reframe. We need to experience the whole lemon and learn to use the different parts.
One of my best practices for working through adversity is to journal the experience. Journaling allows for self-expression and self-reflection in a safe, private space.
It's freeing to be able to leave your thoughts and worries on the page. Once you have vented and reflected your thoughts and feelings on the page, you'll be able to look back for insight and understanding.
From each adversity comes skills and lessons to be learned and then applied to enhance our lives. The only way to maximize on benefits from adversity is to be aware of what the lessons are and how we can use them.
The biggest adversities in my life are still giving me lessons years after they have happened. The different skills that I have learned and the different perspectives that I have gained are still evolving as I grow older.
Maximize the opportunities for growth and development by reflecting, re-evaluating and reframing adversity so that you can use all the parts of the lemon.
3. Choose to Make Lemon Pie Instead
“It’s that creativity has the power to look pain in the eye, and to decide to turn it into something better.”
― Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
Experiencing adversity has given me inner strength and a sense of power. Knowing that I have survived and that I can thrive despite life's adversities has given me the courage and confidence to make my own way in life.
Who says that I am limited to making lemonade with life's lemons? Why not make a fancy lemon pie instead?
Experiencing the bad has given me an even greater appreciation of the good in life and the desire to make something greater with my life.
I am grateful for the memories that I do have of my father and the alternate path in my life that resulted from his passing.
I am grateful for the 20 years with my mom and all the qualities of kindness, generosity and open-mindedness that I learned about parenting from her example.
I am grateful we found the tumour in my brain and were able to treat the infertility it caused so that I could have my two amazing sons.
My limited time with my own parents has made me a better parent to my sons because it has built our family values and strong bonds.
My immigrant experience of being discriminated against and underestimated has given me the drive to empower and develop myself and others in my life's work.
I choose to not let the pain experienced in my life go in vain, I choose to make it into something better and to make life sweeter.
Finding Power From Pain
“The place you suffer is the place you care. You hurt because you care. Therefore, the best response to pain is to dive deeper into your caring.”
― Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
Every new lemon that life throws at me takes the same cycle of acknowledging, processing and accepting before I can move on. With each new lemon, there is a bruise left behind that never fully heals, but continues to give lessons as my life evolves.
Life lessons can be painful. But if you learn to work through the pain, you will find the power to make the best lemonade or lemon pie with whatever life throws at you.
Lemons are a part of life and if we don't taste the bitterness, how would we appreciate the sweetness?
Additional articles you may find helpful on coping with adversity:
9 Ways to Overcome Adversity - Online Article - psychcentral.com
10 Proven Ways on How to Overcome Adversity in Life - Online Article - tonyrobbins.com
Building Resilience: How to Help Today's Youth Thrive IRL - Online Article - AYCLimitless.com
I would love to hear your comments!
What lessons have you learned from experiencing adversity?
What is a super strength you have gained from experiencing adversity?
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I’m thinking of you. I hope the news from the doctor was good news! 🥰
I don’t know what to say, just wanna hag you in person and wish you all the best, I will pray for you…take care, love you